Have you ever had so many tabs open on your computer that your computer froze up? Well, having ADHD is like that sometimes, there are always so many things happening in my brain, sometimes even too much for me to keep up with Having ADHD has been a wild and sometimes difficult ride, but it can help me in school and I am sure my future career. Even since I was little I have either been too energetic or too tired for everything. From pretty early on, I was put on medication. Which made a big difference, and still does. Up until I was 12, I was on Adderall, which had its pros and cons. One of the biggest cons was it killed my appetite, so most of the time I was on Adderall, I was underweight. Now that I am older I realize more things or habits I have are ADHD-related, and in day-to-day life, it can be hard to get around or work with these things. For example, lousy memory. Chores are extremely difficult when there are many of them to do and you can not remember all of them. High school is really where my ADHD is my rise and my fall. I have seven classes in a day. Some classes I thrive in, others not so much. One of the classes I thrive most in is AV production, which I simply call news class. In that class, we make daily announcement videos for the school. I am the director of the news team so I am moving quickly a lot of the time. With how well I am doing in this class I anticipate that my future career in video editing will be smooth sailing. Video editing is a very attention-demanding thing and it makes you work with the flow of things. Which is better than jumping from thing to thing and not putting much time or effort into things because you are trying to do many things all at once. Having ADHD has been a wild and sometimes difficult ride, but it can help me in school and I am sure my future career. While having ADHD can be extremely difficult, it can also really help things. Some of the perks of ADHD may not be viewed as perks to neuronormal people, but no one ever said I was normal. There may be more challenges but challenges are meant to make you stronger, right?

Have you ever asked a friend for a recommendation, and it was so wonderful that you obsessed over it for a while? Well with the ever-growing amount of social media platforms, content, and content creators; book lovers have made themselves a cozy, little corner in the vast world of the internet. Within this cozy little corner of the internet, bookworms can share their love of books with friends and even strangers. At the center of this online book community is BookTok. BookTok has a massive influence on readers everywhere including me which is why I want to one day have a diverse collection of books and bookish, fangirl things, and with the small collection I already have now what I think are some must-haves that I recommend to everyone to read. BookTok has provided me with many ideas for books I want in my future collection. One series I would like in my future library is ‘The Inheritance Games’ by Jennifer Lynn Barnes. It’s about a girl who finds out she is in the will of a billionaire, but she has to play a game to earn her inheritance. It is also a mystery, which I would like to read more of. Another series I would like to own is ‘Daughter of the Pirate King’ by Tricia Levenseller. The book is about a pirate princess trying to find missing pieces of a map, but the first mate of the ship that kidnapped her is not making things easy for her. It seems like a thrilling tale of pirates, treasure, and hate to love. While books are what makes a library a library, sometimes you need a little more to complete it and make it your library. For example, fake bejeweled crowns, daggers, and/or swords. Maybe also some ‘Funko Pop” figures from my favorite shows/movies or custom ones based on my favorite books. BookTok is best known for its copious amounts of book recommendations. Some are excellent, and others… well, we won’t talk about them, I have experienced both. I have found a sizeable number of good books for BookTok, but some exceed that level of ‘good ’ so much that I think everyone should read them. For example one of the BookTok original favorites, ‘The Selection’ by Kiera Cass. This was the first series I ever finished and it is still one of my favorites. It is a beautiful love story between America Singer and Prince Maxon Schreave with charming moments, inmate moments, and heart string pulling moments. My other top BookTok favorite is a bit more recent, it is ‘Caraval’ by Stephanie Garber. As soon as I finished the last book of the series I missed the characters. It was so good I stayed up all night to finish it. By the time I had finished it it was morning, and then I could not stop thinking about it throughout the day. It was a story with so much love, magic, and excitement. BookTok has a massive influence on readers everywhere including me which is why I want to one day have a diverse collection of books and bookish, fangirl things, and with the small collection I already have now what I think are some must-haves that I recommend to everyone to read. BookTok has been spreading the love of reading all over the world. Maybe even influencing others to read which is amazing because I can’t one of the best things you can be is a reader.

“Where words fail music speaks”, this is a quote by Hans Christian Andersen, yeah not exactly the person who I could imagine jamming out to some Linkin Park, but that describes why so many people love music. When it comes to music I think the best way to experience it is live. My first concert memory was a Family Force 5 concert with my cousins and mom and my favorite concert memory is when me and my mom went to an Evanescence concert. I was about 7 or 8 when I had my first concert experience. My mom had gotten some cheap concert tickets to Family Force 5: she took me and my two older cousins, Morgan and Madison. I think we actually arrived late, but when we there… wow. It was a lot for it being my first concert and the fact that I was 8. We were sat at the very back corner and it was dark and loud. Skip to the fall break of 2021, I am now 14-15 years old. Me and my mom are chilling at home, as we always do on breaks, when she gives me this bag. I open it to find a long, poofy purple tulle skirt; she tells me we are going somewhere and I will be wearing the skirt. I was already thinking it was the Evanescence concert I told her I got an ad on my phone for it, but she would not tell me when I asked her. We then drove an hour to meet my aunt's friend who makes printed t-shirts, she gave Mom these shirts she made. The shirt had Amy Lee and lyrics to one of her songs. I %100 knew then that we were going to the Evanescence concert. After a lot of traffic, we made it to the place where the concert was being held. There was also a Talor Swift concert there that night(bah). After we went through all the security stuff we were going to go to our seats, but we were so high up, and the stairs were extremely steep; because of this, we sat at the bar seating they had behind the other seats. Evanescence was not the only band playing that night, Plush and Halestorm were also playing, but during one of Halestorms songs Amy Lee came out and started singing with Lzzy Hale. Mom started crying a tiny bit because she had been a fan of Amy Lee's since she was my age, so now that she actually got to go to a concert made her very happy. After Halestorm’s part of the show was over, there was a 30-minute period where they were setting up the stage for Evanescnce’s part of the show. When their part started both me and my mom were singing along, and the concert went longer because Amy Lee had some family there. After it was over we got a poster, and it was so windy outside we almost lost it. That night was enjoyable. My first concert memory was a Family Force 5 concert with my cousins and mom and my favorite concert memory is when me and my mom went to an Evanescence concert. Concerts are really fun ways to enjoy music; no matter what type of music you like. I personally can’t wait to make more concert memories.

Did your mom ever do something when you were a child that made you think she was a superhero? Well, that is my mom all the time. She is always doing too many things for one person to do at once and is always putting in maximum effort, and she is almost always doing it without asking for help. Growing up with a single mom has made me a self-sufficient person and a leader. Whenever my mom needs help she will not ask for help(even if she needs it), she is always worried about others before herself. She does this all by herself and keeps going when it gets hard. I have, whether intentionally or unintentionally, taken after her in this. I have become a self-sufficient person, a very stubborn self-sufficient person, but still a self-suffcient person. Being a self-sufficient person has its pros and cons. One good thing is a am good at working and being by myself. On the bad side of things when I need help or am dealing with a problem, asking for help is one of the last options on my mind if I even consider it. Although now that I think about it that sounds a lot like my mom, hmh funny. My mom is always a leader without asking if it is needed she will take charge. I didn’t realize I took after her in this too till I got into a serious leadership position. At the end of my junior year of high school, I was told for my senior year I was going to be the director of my high school news team. The last few weeks of my junior year I was being trained by the director at the time so I would be ready. Then came my first day of my senior year which also meant my first day as director. At first, I was concerned about leading the news team, but I rapidly fell into a good rhythm. The next thing I knew I was successfully leading the news team and it felt right. I ended up telling my mom this(because I tell her everything) and she was so proud that I took after her, and well… I was proud of myself too. Growing up with a single mom has made me a self-sufficient person and a leader. I may still vividly remember the day me and my mom moved to Texas leaving my dad, but I still think that my mom is the best and that she would do anything for me. That day I may have had a family member taken away, but my mom was still with me through it all doing all she could do.

Have you ever been asked, ‘Why do you read fiction books? They don’t teach you anything’. Books can teach and show us things about ourselves, no matter their genre. They can also help you to set goals everywhere in your life. Reading books has made me start to stand up for what I believe and that love is complicated but beautiful. “It said girls are a revolutionary force that can change the world for real”. This is a quote from the book ‘Moxie’, a book about a girl from a high school in Texas who is done with all of the sexism in her school starts fighting against it. I read this book a little over a year ago, but I still consider it one of my top favorites because of the effect it had on me. After I had finished it I just kind of sat there soaking it in, I was just feeling so many feelings from the book I just needed to sit there for a minute to digest it all. It made me come to the realization that I need to fight for what I believe in or nothing will change, and even if I can’t change things people will know where I stand. So now I make it my goal to fight for change. “True love is usually the most inconvenient kind”, Kiera Cass. This quote is from the first book series I ever finished, ‘The Selection’. The book takes place in a dystopian world where there caste system where depending on what caste you were born into that is your job for life. The main character America Singer is a five which means that she and her family are artists. Then she gets invited to the palace to compete for the prince and crown, but she doesn’t want to be there, but slowly but surely she ends up falling for the prince. Then three books of them being in love and going through issues commences. They do end up happy together but it was not easy. This books taught me that you can’t control who you love and love is not some fairytale, you have to work for it. This book also made me want to find a man who treats me well. So now when ever I am having trouble in my future relationship I will try to remember that we may fight but as long as we love each other everything will be fine. Reading books has made me start to stand up for what I believe and love is complicated but beautiful. With every new book I read, I always think of myself and my goals. Reading can help you rethink your goals and help you come up with new ones. So next time someone asks me why I read, I will tell them about my goals and how the books I have read influence my goals.

“Art is not what you see, but what you make others see”. These are wise words spoken by Edgar Degas, a French realism painter, about what art truly is. Art is all about communicating to the viewer what you believe and see. I create art to show the goodness of the Lord and the enchanting intrigue of books that can take you to new worlds. “So whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do it all for the glory of God” 1 Corinthians 10:31. As a child of God these are words I try to live by, and my art is no exception. When I make art concerning my faith, I don’t want the viewer to see me. I want them to see the greatness of God and his miracles. I want them to be compelled to move with Christ and see what he can do in their lives with his works. Famous author Stephen King once said, “Books are uniquely portable magic”, and I agree with this wholeheartedly. The magic of books is one of the most unusual things ever. They can make you feel like you are dreaming, they can make you feel like you are there with the characters, they can make you feel happy, sad, hopeful, or free. When I make art about reading I am trying to show the viewer the things that go past the words on the page and far off into the reaches of the human imagination. I create art to show the goodness of the Lord and the enchanting intrigue of books. Art is always subjective and always has been, and there’s not anything that can be done to change that. That means it is up to the viewer and their perspective and outlook. That doesn't mean I won’t try to make them see things from my viewpoint in this crazy place we call the world we live in because from where I am sitting there’s much to behold and see.